The Blog

Google Panda 3.4 – What Changed from Panda 3.3 and How to Fix Your Rankings

Google’s definitely on the warpath lately. On February 18th, Google launched Panda 3.3, which was a direct attack against unnatural link building tactics. Now, before the dust had settled, on March 23rd Google launched Panda 3.4, as evidenced (conveniently) by this official tweet:

What did Google Panda 3.4 Change?

Obviously, it’s only been a few days since Google Panda 3.4 was released, so the fallout is still manifesting as Google’s data centers refresh. I’ve done a lot of scoping around, trying to get opinions from other folks about what exactly changed in Panda 3.4, but thus far it doesn’t look like anyone is really willing to venture a guess as to what happened. So these observations are based solely on my interpretation of the ranking changes I’ve seen across the hundred or so websites on which I have ranking and analytics data. Google Panda 3.4 appears to be a revision and update to the changes made in Google Panda 3.3, which shows continued aggression by Google against unnatural link building.

As I stated in my previous post about Google Panda 3.3, here are the specific unnatural link building signals that Google is looking for and devaluing with the most recent revisions of Panda, including 3.4:

Too many exact-match anchor text links. As webmasters (or SEOs), we want the most bang for our buck. This often results in us obsessing over getting links using the exact anchor text of the keyword we want to rank well for. This used to work really well, but Panda 3.3 and 3.4 have changed that. Previous to Panda 3.3, it was ideal to aim for around 40% exact-match anchor text links (as a percentage of your overall inbound link profile), but now the ideal figure is probably closer to 5-10%.

Not enough junk anchors, LSI anchors, brand anchors, and naked URL anchors. I touched on this point in my previous post, but I wanted to expand on what each of these terms means, since they are so essential now.

Junk anchor text, also known as “universal anchor text” is anchor text that’s not keyword-rich, and could be used for any website, or any niche. Common examples of junk anchor text includes “click here”, “visit this website”, “learn more”, etc. It’s important to use junk anchor text because it looks natural to Google, since most normal folks use that kind of language when they link to another website.

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) anchors are comprised of keywords related to, synonymous with, or similar to your target keyword. For instance, if your target keyword is “dog training,” then some LSI anchors would include “training for dogs,” “training for your dog”, “how to train your dog”, “teaching your dog to do tricks”, etc. A great way to find LSI anchors for your particular keyword is to use Google’s free keyword tool. These are important to use because it’s unnatural for many people from many websites to just happen to link to your website with the same anchor text. It’s much more likely (and, therefore, natural) to link using a wide variety of anchor text. The only exception to this is with brand anchors and naked URLs.

Brand anchors are comprised of keywords that include your brand or company name. For example, if your company name is “Jayson’s Dog Training”, then examples of brand anchors would include “Jayson’s Dog Training,” “Jaysons dog training,” “Jason’s Dog Training,” “Dog training tips at Jayson’s Dog Training”, “Learn to train your dog at Jayson’s Dog Training,” etc. Brand anchors are commonly used to link to company homepages, so it makes more sense for them to link to your homepage rather than internal pages. However, variety is necessary (and natural), so I recommend ensuring that a few brand anchors point to your internal pages as well.

Naked URLs are anchors that are comprised of variations of your website’s URL. For example, for AudienceBloom.com, here are some naked URL anchors: “audiencebloom.com”, “http://www.audiencebloom.com”, “www.audiencebloom.com”, “http://audiencebloom.com”. Naked URLs can also link to internal pages of a site, in addition to the website homepage.

Not enough social signals. Clearly, Google is on a mission to strip webmasters and SEOs of their power when it comes to manipulating Google’s search engine rankings. Before Panda 3.3, the easiest way to do this was to build lots of inbound links with anchor text including your target keyword. After Panda 3.3 and 3.4, link building still provides the vast majority of the power we wield, but it has been significantly weakened. Google knows that, in order to strip webmasters and SEOs of their power in ranking manipulation, it needs to stop relying on inbound links and start relying more on other signals which are harder to control and game. So far, it looks like Google is turning to social signals as a potential escape from inbound links.Social signals include bookmarks from sites like Delicious and Stumbleupon, votes from social news sites like Digg and Reddit, and votes from social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Google knows that when a particular URL or website is being tweeted a lot, or shared on Facebook or Google+, it’s likely to be popular. Google wants to display popular sites at the top of its search results, so it uses these social signals in its algorithm to help determine ranking placement.After Panda 3.3 and 3.4, it’s more important than ever to have lots of inbound social signals. The best way to get inbound social signals is to do the following:

Create a Facebook page, Twitter account, and Google+ page

Make sure your website visitors can connect with you on these channels by including “Connect” links on your website

I was hit by Panda 3.4; How can I recover?

If you or your client(s) were hit by Panda 3.3 or 3.4 and need to recover, you need to do one or both of the following.

Remove any inbound links you built which have exact-match anchor links, or change the anchor text to a junk anchor, brand anchor, LSI anchor, or naked URL. This is often not possible, in which case you need to do option 2:

Dilute your existing inbound link profile with a new link building campaign that focuses on building new links with junk anchors, brand anchors, LSI anchors, and naked URLs.

Why is Google being such a b#%&@ lately?

Google is a business, and the purpose of a business is to make money. By making these changes, Google is stripping SEOs and webmasters of their ability to manipulate search engine rankings and get their websites (or their clients’ websites) ranked on the first page of Google’s search results. As a result, Google is increasing the demand for their pay-per-click traffic auction, Adwords. Webmasters that previously held high rankings for competitive keywords lost tons of website traffic and sales after Panda 3.3 and Panda 3.4. So, what was their best alternative? Google Adwords.

Not only has Google created more demand for its Adwords product, but in doing so it has created more competition for every keyword auction within Adwords, driving up the price of keyword bids and raking in the money. As unfortunate as it is, it’s a good strategy by Google and it’ll definitely increase Google’s profits.

I hope you found this post helpful. If you’ve been hit by Panda 3.3 or Panda 3.4, don’t hesitate to reach out. We offer link building packages that are designed to help you recover from a Panda 3.3 or Panda 3.4 penalty.

Want more great resources?

A very interesting and informative article, I will change my link building strategy and focus more on social media.

I’m not sure that Google’s constant algorithm changes are good for the general economy. They have a negative effect on the business viability of the sites they crawl and list in their giant engine. Take a business which has been established online for a decade, seen plenty of growth and therefore employed more and more people in accordance with requirements, including and SEO department. Employing SEO experts is not cheating its a sound business investment for those wishing to succeed in these difficult times. Suddenly through Google’s attempt to penalise success and obtain more revenue through Adwords, said business finds itself 10 pages down the list and instantly becomes not viable. Result = loss of jobs, loss of tax revenue for the relevant government and loss of options for the consumer, Google’s audience and customers!

I think of this as a retail business which has paid for a premium location on the busiest street in a major City capital, suddenly being relegated to a back street location in a small town, the result to the economy would be obvious.

http://www.thehobbyblogger.com Bryan

But just because a business has the best location doesn’t mean it has the best prices, products, customer service, etc. Google’s primary service to consumers is to provide the most relevant search results. It’s not intended to provide an avenue for business to increase their visibility. That’s what ads are for.

If Google doesn’t provide the most relevant search results, searchers will find another search engine and Google will lose revenue.

Great article Jayson.

Look at this

Very interesting article. And agree with Dave this sort of behaviour is bad for the broader economy and in fact everyone but Google.

> Standard practice used to be you’d aim for about 30% to 50% matches…now that numbers dropped

Again, you see that nobody really knows what makes Google tick, I’m not suggesting that Google should publish it’s algorithm to the general public, however sending online businesses into utter panic is almost a bully tactic from the giant. I’ve read things like “remove all your paid back-links regardless of their age” What a load of twaddle, how could one achieve that with a 10 year old domain that as been link building since it’s inception, impossible! Furthermore, if there were any truth in that, then competitors could simply overload your site with hundreds of $1 poor quality back-links (all with the same anchor text)….food for thought?

As a rule I do not reply to any forums on this subject, but here I sense a bunch of intelligent SEO people and hope that we can share our Google experiences, good and bad!

I’ve now bookmarked this page and will visit regularly.

Adeel

I am so glad that I have bookmarked this website because I see that it is full of various and attractive information about SEO linkbuilding. Thanks one more time for this publication, it was really interesting to update.

Dave

My experience of Panda 3.4 —I look after the SEO for about 10 sites and initially after 3.4 they all dropped slightly in SERPS. I have not made any dramatic changes and continue to build quality relevant back-links. They are all now stronger than they were prior to 3.4, probably because they have always had good quality original content too.

What are others experiencing?

Mich

Here’s a question for you Jason,

One of my sites got hit with 3.4 and has only slightly recovered. The only problem MAY be with too many same anchor text links. However, this is only as a result of sitting on the blog roll of a bigger site. Does google take that into account? Does that mean I need to remove it from all blogrolls to reduce the inbound anchor text links ?

Google is throwing the baby with the bathwater….

Jayson

Hi Mich,

Yes, blogroll links can blow your anchor text out of proportion. Same with footer links. For now, it’s best to stay out of those until Google figures out that its algorithm is attacking innocent sites for these reasons.

Michael Ehline

You are way too smart for your own good. I would like to pay you to do an initial eval of my site. I contacted you, but got an automated response I think. I need to know my overall weight. Can you help me?

Jayson

Absolutely! I just sent you an email.

venkat

Very nice article on Google Panda.

Please help us.

Keyword rankings in Google are dropping from 15th March 2012, but few keywords are still in 1st page and few are in 2nd, 3rd and so on. We were not received any type of messages from Google search quality team in Google webmaster tools. Back links also decreased from 70,000 to 48,000. We added new content to the existing home page content. Site has been crawling on daily basis. We deleted BlogSpot comments and bookmarking links.

Is due to Google Penguin or Google panda updates my site keyword positions changed in Google SERP?

Please suggest us regarding how to get back the keyword rankings back in Google SERP.

http://www.bridesetc.ca Tania

Thanks for writting this article.

How do you write a junk anchor or naked URL? Do I really have to delete all of my links?

I have a page especially for links, is this the wrong thing to do? Or should I display links in a different way?

Thanks so much,
Tania

Jayson

Hi Tania,

Take a look at the post again and you’ll see some examples I gave for writing a junk anchor and naked URLs. You don’t need to delete all your links, but if you’ve been penalized then you should look into getting an inbound link profile audit to determine which links are hurting you. We offer this service for $150 flat.

Having a page especially for links is fine as long as the links aren’t keyword-stuffed and obviously manipulative; they should anchor as the brand names or naked URLs of the destination sites. And you need to make sure that the destination sites are legitimate and haven’t been penalized by Google. Outbound links to shady neighborhoods can hurt your own site’s rankings.